“The issue of teacher assessment and school evaluation during the post 1974 period of Greece: official policies and union opposition ”
Demetrius Charalambous – John Ganakas
Page 13-41
Abstract
As shown by its title, this essay looks at the matter of the evaluation of educators and educational work, during the period of the political changeover. Traditionally, the responsibility of evaluating educators had been vested in Inspectors. However, as the 21st April regime had used Inspectors for political purposes, their function had been intensely challenged, and was finally abolished by the PASOK government, in 1982. After 1982, when the function of Inspectors was replaced by that of School Advisers, the responsibility of evaluation was given to the latter. However the teachers’ unions disagreed with bringing personal evaluation back, and declared their position firmly, using a variety of arguments. One of these is that the intention of civil authority is to bring back “inspectorism”, autocratic and hierarchical relationships in education and the control of the educators’ political and ideological positions, through such evaluation. Since then, and despite the fact that the political parties and the governments of PASOK and New Democracy tried to establish evaluation, they have been steadily blocked by the forceful, effective oppositions of educational organisations. The educational organisations’ rejection is reinforced by the fact that the political position for evaluation is confused and often, self-contradictory. If the force of the union reactions may be traced to the negative inheritance of “inspectorism”, the ease with which the relevant legal texts are overruled has to be traced to the client character of our political system and the party spirit which infiltrates Greek society, not excluding of course, the educational organisations. The way the matter of evaluation has progressed during the period of political changeover shows that it has developed into a political problem, which is now difficult to solve. The final result of the opposition of the educational organisations to the matter of evaluation, the client relationships and the party spirit, is reflected on the one hand, on the non-implementation of as many as four laws, two presidential decrees and a ministerial decision and on the other hand, on the numerous drafts of presidential decrees, which were similarly, never put in legal force.